Betting on a gamble was a gamble in itself, but there was one consistent thing among gamblers: it was difficult for them to pull away from a score. The mirror pool aristocrat clearly wasn’t a gambler, but he had built his fortune on taking advantage of people who were. After a few moments of consideration he had agreed to Dallion’s proposal, but adding a new twist: win-or-lose Dallion wasn’t to get any cut of the profits. What was more, if he ended up losing, he’d owe the mirror pool a “minor favor.” If he won, however, he was going to get a fully functional kaleidervisto.

The deal was outright bad, but Dallion no choice but to agree. The alternative was to ask the general for help, and Dallion remembered how well that had gone last time. Considering what the competition was about, though, it was somewhat questionable what would have been worse.

After the deal had been made, Dallion was taken to the third floor. While the space was smaller than the ones beneath, the sections it was separated into were larger. Overall, it was divided in a number of gambling sections with games ranging from forms of dice to things that Dallion had never seen. Interestingly enough, there didn’t appear to be card tricks of any kind. The spot Dallion was taken to was a large semi-circular table divided in eight sections of various colors, like an overly simplified roulette wheel.

Unsure what was expected from him, Dallion made his way to the straight side of the table and waited. The moment he did, a series of chimes echoed throughout the room. Everyone stopped whatever they were doing and looked in his direction. After the fourth chime, a silence filled the room, interrupted only by hushed whispers. The music on the floor stopped, and some of the lanterns were dimmed.

“Dear clients,” a bubbly female voice said.

Appearing from the far end of the room, a figure appeared. Similar to all the waiters and other Drum personnel Dallion had seen, she was beautiful, yet comparing her to all the rest was like comparing a piece of polished glass to a diamond. With paper white skin and flawless features, the woman walked forward, dressed in a green dress that Dallion could swear was made of emerald thread. Waving jet black hair fell down her back and shoulders like a midnight waterfall. And to top it all, the woman wasn’t even human—she was a fury.

“Please, forgive the distraction,” the woman continued, her mouth in a perfect smile as she spoke. “I know you are focused on your games, but we have a rather special treat for you tonight.”

As she walked towards Dallion, everyone in the vicinity moved back, as if pushed by an invisible force.

“An awakened has come to the Drum with a challenge.” The fury extended her hand forward, presenting Dallion. “I would love to tell you the name of this brave fool, but as you know, there are no names here.”

The room erupted in low key laughter.

“We shall call him Silver Mask. And he has come to try to pass through the gauntlet.”

The lantern above the table Dallion was lit up—not so much so that people could get a look at him, but rather that they could see what was on the table itself.

“Out loyal clients already know what’s in store, but for the sake of our first timers, I’ll go through the rules of the gauntlet with our first timers.”

That was actually a pretty good idea, given that Dallion remained clueless. Keeping his cool, he listened in.

“Our brave challenge will be given eight items,” the fury continued, as two waiters lifted a rather massive wooden chest behind her. “Each of these items will be selected at random from a set of twenty. If you want to be the person selecting the item, you could do so, for a small fee, of course.”

Laughter filled the room.

“I would like to note that each has a gem of a very specific color, matching that of the section of the table. So once a decision is made, the selector can only choose from items that have their color.”

The chest was opened and a rather rusty dagger was taken out. Despite the pitiful state of the weapon, the ruby on its hilt was quite visible.

“The goal of our challenger is to mend all the items that are selected one at a time. Should he succeed, he will be given a substantial amount of money and another item will be selected. An important rule is that between each round the contestant, as well as all of you, dear clients, have the chance to wager on the color of the next item. Should you succeed, you triple your winnings in the case the contestant succeeds to mend the item in question. Should he fail… well let’s stick to happy things for now, shall we?”

Mending roulette? Dallion could see that. It was a sort of game that an awakened amble would come up with. He was curious whether Adzorg had participated in a game of this nature, or maybe he had bet on someone who had.

“The game continues until the challenger mends all items, or fails,” the fury said, standing uncomfortably close to Dallion. Even so, he could feel a thin layer of air between her and himself. “A monumental task, but one that holds a grand reward. If the challenger is successful, the owner of the Drum, Balaal himself, will give him all his gains, as well as a special prize. What do you think of that?”

Dallion expected cheers and clapping. Instead, the people whispered to one another, nodding with impressed expressions. Dallion took that time to focus on the chest. Judging by the size, there could be anything inside, from rings to bowling balls. There was no way for him to find out what he was going to be given, but judging by the air, it wasn’t going to be only slightly chipped.

“There are just two rules,” the fury raised her hand in the air. “Improving items is not permitted. And two—there could be no more than one minute rest between endings.”

So, this was a stamina game.

“Of course, if anyone from you, dear patrons, wishes to buy him a drink between rounds to refresh himself, you could do so. Keep in mind, no alcohol will be permitted. We wouldn’t want anyone to tilt the odds one way or another.”

The usual hushed laughter filled the room again.

Dallion looked at the table. If he had to guess, each would be more difficult than the last. In order to win his prize, he had to go through them all. It didn’t sound particularly challenging, which is why he suspected it to be.

“Any questions?” the fury whispered in a hushed voice.

“No,” Dallion replied.

“Let the gauntlet begin! Please, place your bets!”

The room exploded with instructions, as the people away from the table gave their coins on the section they wished. In a matter of minutes, the table was virtually full. The only color that was left empty was that black section.

“No bets on black?” Dallion asked.

“That’s the color of the star,” the fury whispered. “Even our customers are somewhat superstitious.”

Once the last bet was placed, the woman gave a sign for the chest to be placed a step away from the table.

“Does anyone want to be the first to select?” the fury asked loudly. There was no reaction. “A wise decision,” she went on with a smile. “The first item that our challenger has to bend is…” she opened the chest, then quickly grabbed something from inside. “A corroded silver goblet with a green emerald,” she announced loudly to the dismay of many.

Holding it high for everyone to see, the fury then placed the item in its spot on the table. Now it was Dallion’s turn. And just to create some suspense, a sand hourglass was placed on the table as well.

Here we go, Dallion told himself and grabbed hold of the silver goblet.”

ITEM AWAKENING

Reality changed. The good news was that the item was a perfectly ordinary item, even if it was made of silver. The bad news was that the realm looked as if it had gone through an end of the world scenario. Large patches of the walls and floor were corroded and in places full of holes. Even the floor seemed unsafe to walk on.

Music and forging, Dallion thought.

All claws and weaknesses in the room became instantly visible. In that aspect, Dallion was right—there were quite a few sections on the floor that didn’t seem to be able to hold his weight, or any weight, for that matter.

Gen, get lux to come out, Dallion thought.

To his relief, the firebird instantly appeared and eagerly picked him up. That was one problem taken care of.

“Take me there,” Dallion pointed towards the only door in the room. “Slowly, though! Just at the threshold of the labyrinth.

If this were an area of a sphere item, Dallion would have been busy fighting Moons know how many stinky and cracklings. Since it wasn’t, the challenge was considerably easier. In addition to being misshapen and broken up, the labyrinth here had large weakened sections. One step there and Dallion might well fall star knows where and probably destroy the item as he did so. The way he saw it, there was one course of action: repair the damaged areas and then arrange the realm as he was supposed to.

Summoning an indoor of silver, Dallion placed it in the nearest large crack. The metal was almost immediately consumed, eliminating the fissure in the process.

Labyrinth section mended!

Overall completion 23%

Twenty-three percent? That left a lot of work to be done. On the bright side, Dallion’s forging experience and Lux’s ability gave him a clear advantage. There were a few things he had to test out, though. Moving to one of the corrupted sections of the labyrinth, Dallion summoned another ingot of silver and gently had its edge touch the dark spot. Almost immediately, the black element started to spread up the ingot. Immediately, Dallion summoned the Nox dagger and did a series of slashes in rapid succession, adding cracks into the brick of metal until the entire part fell off.

Moments later, the corrupted part had dissolved entirely, while the rest had remained intact.

“A waste for good silver,” Dallion joked. At least he knew the method of getting rid of the corrosion.

Choosing a patch on the wall, Dallion used the Nox Dagger to cut out a part of the wall and removed it. As he did the fragment corroded in on itself, disappearing completely. Apparently, that was the one way to complete the task. Maybe not the fastest way, but it was efficient nonetheless.

“Lux, Nox, it’ll be a long day.” Dallion got to work.

Piece after piece he cut off the corrupted spots, summoning silver afterwards to fix them. There maybe was another way to see things through, but since he had learned some forging skills, why not make use of them? Yet, even with all of Dallion’s skills combined, it took quite a while before he had most of the labyrinth fixed.

When all the corroded segments were removed and all the holes filled, finally the blue rectangle emerged.

Labyrinth fully mended!

The GOBLET is now flawless.

Once that happened, Dallion returned to the real world and let go of the item.

It took a while for the crowd to make out what had happened. While everyone was probably familiar with the method of mending, only the most observant picked it out right away.

“And our awakened has mended the first item,” the fury announced almost on the second he was done. “All those who guessed the color have their prize money doubled. However, would our challenger be as lucky this time? From now on, we’ll be adding one more rule—you can bet against him. As before, if you guess the color on which he would fail your winnings would be tippled. All those who wish to bet against, please tell the respective assistant and you’ll have a marker placed on your bet.”

“That’s harsh,” Dallion whispered.

“Yes,” the fury smiled at him. “It’s supposed to be.”